How did we get here?
The first part of building a solid intel test rig, is of course, the platform. The i5 11400F was my choice for the CPU. It has six cores and twelve threads and is a great midrange processor. Recently purchased was an Arc A750 graphics card, so all I needed was the support material and cooling. I have a DeepCool case, and recently picked up a set of DeepCool RGB fans, so a plan was forming. The power supply and storage were also ready, so I gathered everything I needed, and was off to a great start.
Assembly wasn’t difficult. The case is great to work in and the fans fit perfectly. There was already an NVMe drive installed, and except for an errant motherboard screw, things fit well together. The second step was going well. That’s where the fun stopped, though. The motherboard chosen had a BIOS from before the Arc A750’s release, and it wasn’t until a fair bit of troubleshooting, that I discovered this.
The NVMe drive also didn’t show up as a boot drive, although it had a new copy of Windows 10 Pro. Troubleshooting one problem at a time is fair, but this masqueraded as a DRAM problem and CPU issue, instead of the GPU. One complete disassembly and reassembly later, I thought of the BIOS. Achievement unlocked.
I still had no drive showing up, so I tried to repair Windows. I don’t know why there is a repair utility in the Media Creation tool. It never works, EVER. Time to reinstall it instead. Nope, the NVMe already had a master boot record. Seriously? BIOS says it doesn’t (even after the update) and the Win Utility says it does. This isn’t going great anymore.
Day Two
With a cooler head, I came back, grabbed an SSD with no data, and started over. To my amusement, everything worked. I then started with my normal installs only to realize that if I were going to do this right, I would need an Intel NVMe. Stop installing stuff, Paul. And, while you’re at it, order another DeepCool fan to balance out the RGB. Done. Time to edit what I had, and post it on YouTube.
Everything wasn’t done yet, but there was enough material for the build video. The video was up, so I went to dinner. I then realized that I forgot the thumbnail. Oh, I made one, I just forgot to use it. The frustration finally got me. It would be hours until I could fix it, but it couldn’t be helped. It would wait.
Finishing the Intel Test Rig
All I had to do was wait for the new drive and the extra fan and I could start benchmarks. What? A notice about my order? Delayed? What the……?
To be continued. In the meantime, check out the Arc A750 GPU post.